I have served as Loudoun Republican Committee's 72HR/GOTV point man, as well as a vice-Chair for the Catoctin District in Loudoun. My concerns voiced here will be all mine. As an original member of Loudoun's Tooconservative "Posse", I have transcended Party in the past...in every effort to protect county citizens from corrupt practice. I run into two groups of people often. Those who are REALLY glad to see me at an event, and those who cross the street to avoid me.

Friday, December 31, 2010

On Nov 13, 2010 Lt General John Kelly, USMC gave a speech to theSemper Fi Society of St. Louis, MO. This was 4 days after his son, LtRobert Kelly, USMC was killed by an IED while on his 3rd Combat tour.During his speech, General Kelly spoke about the dedication and valorof the young men and women who step forward each and every day toprotect us.During the speech, he never mentioned the loss of his own son.He closed the speech with the moving account of the last 6 secondsin the lives of 2 young Marines who died with rifles blazing to protecttheir brother Marines.

"I will leave you with a story about the kind of people theyare...about the quality of the steel in their backs...about the kind ofdedication they bring to our country while they serve in uniform andforever after as veterans. Two years ago when I was the Commander of all U.S.and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marineinfantry battalions, 1/9 "The Walking Dead," and 2/8 were switching outin Ramadi. One battalion in the closing days of their deploymentgoing home very soon, the other just starting its seven-month combattour.

Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal JordanHaerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, wereassuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost thatcontained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines. The same broken downramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, also my men and ourallies in the fight against the terrorists in Ramadi, a city untilrecently the most dangerous city on earth and owned by Al Qaeda.

Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He didthis on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the otherhand, was a middle class white kid from Long Island. They were from twocompletely different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines they wouldnever have met each other, or understood that multiple America's exist simultaneously depending on one's race, education level,economic status, and where you might have been born. But they wereMarines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training,and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer,than if they were born of the same woman.

The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leaderI am sure went something like: "Okay you two clowns, stand this postand let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." "You clear?" I amalso sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unisonsomething like: "Yes Sergeant," with just enough attitude thatmade the point without saying the words, "No kidding sweetheart, we knowwhat we're doing." They then relieved two other Marines on watch andtook up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security StationNasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, Al Anbar, Iraq.

A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alleyway-perhaps 60-70 yards in length-and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where thetwo were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically.Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. Amosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck's engine came to rest twohundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped. Ourexplosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds ofexplosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymendidn't have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of theirIraqi and American brothers-in-arms.

When I read the situation report about the incident a few hoursafter it happened I called the regimental commander for details assomething about this struck me as different. Marines dying or beingseriously wounded is commonplace in combat. We expect Marines regardlessof rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die inthe process, if that is what the mission takes. But this just seemeddifferent. The regimental commander had just returned from thesite and he agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses tothe event-just Iraqi police. I figured if there was any chance offinding out what actually happened and then to decorate the two Marinesto acknowledge their bravery, I'd have to do it as a combat awardthat requires two eye-witnesses and we figured the bureaucrats backin Washington would never buy Iraqi statements. If it had anychance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.

I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to ahalf-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truckturned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its waythrough the serpentine. They all said, "We knew immediately what wasgoing on as soon as the two Marines began firing." The Iraqi police thenrelated that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safetyjust prior to the explosion. All survived. Many were injured...someseriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated and with tears wellingup said, "They'd run like any normal man would to save his life." "Whathe didn't know until then," he said, "and what he learned that veryinstant, was that Marines are not normal." Choking past theemotion he said, "Sir, in the name of God no sane man would have stoodthere and done what they did." "No sane man." "They saved us all."

What we didn't know at the time, and only learned a couple ofdays later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter forposthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras,damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. Ithappened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactlysix seconds from when the truck entered the alley until itdetonated.

You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Puttingmyself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the twoMarines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactlyno time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they shoulddo.Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what thesergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: "...let nounauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." The two Marines had about fiveseconds left to live.

It took maybe another two seconds for them to present theirweapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-waythrough the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recordingshows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, nowscattering like the normal and rational men they were-some running rightpast the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.

For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines'weapons firing non-stop...the truck's windshield exploding into shardsof glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of theson-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill theirbrothers -American and Iraqi-bedded down in the barracks totallyunaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely ontwo Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, theywould have known they were safe...because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber. The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of theinstantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By allreports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never evenstarted to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With theirfeet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firingas fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second leftto live.

The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go totheir God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families,their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, butmore than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty...intoeternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all overthe world tonight-for you.

We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift hecould bestow to man while he lived on this earth-freedom. We alsobelieve he gave us another gift nearly as precious-our soldiers, sailors,airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines-to safeguard that gift andguarantee no force on this earth can every steal it away. It has been mydistinct honor to have been with you here today. Rest assured ourAmerica, this experiment in democracy started over two centuries ago, willforever remain the "land of the free and home of the brave" so long aswe never run out of tough young Americans who are willing to look beyondtheir own self-interest and comfortable lives, and go into the darkestand most dangerous places on earth to hunt down, and kill, those whowould do us harm.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

About a couple of months ago, I forecast the inevitable. Stated emphatically that it was going to occur.Oh, quite a few parrots on FaceBook said " yer just a RINO, and she'll do just fine."Well, I responded -- you're just a bunch of novices and you've proved that you can't even vet your choices, and you've got more bad news coming if you go with these low-hanging fruitbaskets. You need candidates with ethics and charisma...or leave the particular office alone till you find that combo. Look at Marco Rubio. Integrity and charisma in one dynamite package. It can be done.

Federal authorities have opened a criminal investigation of Delaware Republican Christine O'Donnell to determine if the former Senate candidate broke the law by using campaign money to pay personal expenses....again.

We could have been one man closer to Senate domination....save for the idiots in Deleware that thought that this twit was a good idea. :rolleyes:

Lt. Col. Shamil al-Jabouri was killed in the early morning hours of Wednesday (Baghdad time)in Mosul. He had previously been targeted 5 times by Al Queda.And it took three bombs to get him this time. This is how he'll be remembered as a great man and leader, and also demonstrating the lackluster proficiency of the idiots who killed him, and the utter bafoonery, reminiscent of the keystone cops, with which they operated. I apologise to the keystone cops, actually.

He was a beacon of light , and saw his job as bringing about freedom, which drove Al Queda nuts, because they represent the very oppression of the people of Iraq.

Seems to have run in his family, too. Lt. Col. Shamil al-Jabouri has 3 brothers who are also policemean charged with the safety of Iraqi citizens. I pray for their safety as they do the work that's required to liberate Iraq from her oppressors.I also offer prayers for the Lt. Colonel's wife and four children.

I mourn the loss of such great men. He may have been aware of it, and he may not have been aware of it...but he was awash in the sentiment of the old saying..." All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing"

Rest, Lt. Col. Shamil al-Jabouri...you've earned it. You will be missed, and thankfully, there are thousands of others who believe as you did. May you see the face of Allah, and know his grace for the truly enlightened.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Congrats, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Thank you for stepping up to the plate and standing your ground on the erosion of the Constitution. Interstate Commerce was such a crumbling standard to perch this on....that if all 20 States currently involved continue to chip away at the lousy pedastal, it will eventually fail to bear this flawed piece of....(pause) ....legislature.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

An awful lot of folks are still wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth over the selection process for District Senate seats and other elections, as the districts still lack definition and that news is most likely to have a late April coming. Early May could be the actual layout of the borders of the Districts in question to Loudoun.

In the shadow of that timeline, another concern has stepped into the determination process, and no one is celebrating or controlling that issue.

Anyone who has spoken with Dick Black in the past six months has noticed the tremors. That could indicate Parkinson’s. I dated a gal for five years and during that time, was with her thru the process of her father's last days. He had been a Navy Captain of one of the first Nuclear powered-ships...and a striking figure in his prime. And still more who have actually lost loved ones to Alzheimer's is familiar with the short term memory loss that it begins with. My wife's father, a once strong and vibrant architect in Cape Cod, lost his fight some 6 years ago. So, my heart goes out to any family who has to deal with the situation and the eventual loss.

I've been hearing from several sources that Black may actually decide not to incur the stress of a vigorous campaign and may well just decide to enjoy family and more important issues closer to home. I offer prayers on behalf of the family, and on Mr. Black . I'm sincere, because I've seen what lies down that road.

Friday, December 3, 2010

I like to browse back thru old postings at a number of political blogs every once in a while. Tonite, I was going back thru the history of my "warming" to Howie Lind....kinda like a refresher on how I got here.... month by month, if you will.

The last response in a particular thread caught my eye. Didn't mean anything back then. But has taken on a whole new meaning/explanation of the strange bedfellows I heard about back on October 9th. Seems like they were working near enough to each other to forge that new alliance back in May of 2010.Too Conservativeby:Voice of Reasonon May 20th, 2010 at 10:05pm

"Guess who is a alive and well and selling real estate in Purcellville right across the street from Lazaro’s church. Yep! DPM, working her way back in and back up, right next to the Purcellville rino/dino/inde mayor. Still not sure what his political or religious affiliation is. Changes like the weather. DPM is representing carrington homes, subsid. of Lerner. Wonder what the western clan has planned for the LCRC? Watch out, it is not wise to play with self serving *#&%$@ (people) disguised as “friends”."

Emphasis is mine. I'd heard that she was assembling a "deathstar"... and the particulars were right there in that golden comment at the end of a dead thread.Oh, well. It's not 2011 yet, and forewarned is fore-armed.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Some simply do not understand the chain of events that got us where we are....choosing to blame it on wars and GW Bush. Fact is, GW Bush actually made comment to reigning in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae some eight (8) times from 2004 -2008.If you still can't follow - unemployed and those who could never qualify to repay a loan were given one anyway, because it just wasn't fair that people who could repay their loans were given preference over those who couldn't.

Understanding DerivativesHeidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit . She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers' loans). Word gets around about Heidi's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit .

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Heidi's gross sales volume increases massively.A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS. These securities then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.

Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as AAA secured bonds really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar. He so informs Heidi.

Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi's 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.The suppliers of Heidi's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from their cronies in government.

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Heidi's bar.

My Kevlar

I knew my Party affiliation by the age of 14. I was able to argue with the television at 16.
More recently, I was compelled to act when I began speaking out for my town, representing town residents against the actions of an overzealous Town Council, and with that involvement, it was only natural that the activism would evolve. Later, there were County elections, and as the passion to do the right thing for my fellow citizens grew, I became even more active in Political Action Committees.